Shake Your Future, 10 weeks to jump into the bartending industry

Bartending can be life-changing and in 2018, we set out to prove it. European Bartender School is proud to link up with the Bacardi Martini group to create the Shake Your Future programme. This programme has helped 10 unemployed people to become professional bartenders with 10 weeks of intensive training before they set out to find a job in the working world..

Shake Your Future has given a group of young French unemployed adults the opportunity to embark upon a new and exciting career path. With weeks of training and help from European Bartender School and the Bacardi Martini Group, they have developed the skills and knowledge to become professional bartenders in only 2 and a half months. Shake Your Future enabled them to work, travel and spend time with people who were going through similar life struggles.

This programme gives people access to a stable profession of endless possibilities; the chance to broaden their horizons, travel and meet new people while earning a living.

Bartending is an extremely flexible profession; it can be full time or part time, in all corners of the world and in a wide range of venues, from restaurants and speakeasies to upscale cocktail bars and world-class hotels. Shake Your Future offers people the unique opportunity to acquire practical, professional skills that they can carry with them for a lifetime.

Those who took part in this programme were pre-selected by Pole Emploi, the French government agency which helps unemployed people seek jobs. Once they were selected by submitting their CV and an online form with a motivational video and on-site interview, they began the 4-week International Bartender Course with European Bartender School in Paris . This course taught them everything from how to make 80 cocktails and the bartender’s role to complex serving techniques such as free pour and flair, along with masterclasses at Bacardi’s Brand Ambassadors bar.

Once they completed this 4-week course, the Bacardi Martini group provided them with a 4-week internship in some of Paris’ best cocktail bars including Café Moderne, Le Forvm, Le Calbar, Lulu’s White, Andy Waloo, Le Jefrey’s and le Lockwood. This intense and enriching professional experience allowed them to enhance their skills by practising behind a bar while learning more about bartending in the real world.

Once they had flourished as bartenders throughout this work experience, they took European Bartender School’s Advanced course in Barcelona for 2 weeks. This allowed them to not only fine-tune their basic skills, but to take everything they had learned to the next level. The course brings in the knowledge of mixology, ice carving, shaking, rolling and stirring. It also delves deeper into the history of classic cocktails.

Finally, these 10 weeks of hard work were celebrated and rewarded on 19th June at Café Moderne in Paris with an awards ceremony to congratulate each and every one of the 7 graduates – Olivia, Thomas, Louis, Tony, David, Willy and Pierre – for taking part and taking the big step to improve their future. In further celebration, the ambassadors of the Bacardi Martini group mentored each student and offered them support in finding a job after the programme.

Even before finishing this programme, the students already began receiving job offers from the bars they were doing their internships in to do some extras during summertime and to work full-time as a bartender then. Futures already shaken!

Overall, Shake Your Future has changed lives in so many ways and because of its success, it will continue to run and work with more unemployed people and spread to more countries such as Italy, Spain, Germany, UK and USA ; with an objective of training 500 people in 5 years!

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